Ocean Acidification

Practical methodologies and operating procedures for ocean acidification researchers, especially users of the GOA-ON in a Box ocean acidification monitoring kit.

Acknowledgments

Coordination support for this work has been provided by The Ocean Foundation, the IAEA Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC), and the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program. In-person coordinating meetings in 2019 and 2024 have been funded by the IAEA OA-ICC. The Ocean Foundation’s coordination and editing time has been supported by the Government of Sweden and an anonymous grantor.

Introduction

Welcome to the Practical Best Practices guide for conducting ocean acidification research with the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) in a Box kit. This kit is a set of sampling and analysis equipment that contains nearly all materials required to obtain “weather-quality” measurements at a fraction of the price of costly conventional monitoring and analysis systems. This guide is centered around using components of the kit, which is comprised of sensors to collect in situ measurements, Van Essen’s CTD-Diver and Sunburst Sensor’s iSAMI-pH, and lab equipment to measure total alkalinity and spectrophotometric pH from discrete water samples. A full list of kit components, suppliers, and U.S. pricing is maintained and periodically updated in this spreadsheet. Yet, many sections will be of general use, such as those on lab management, sample collection, and data management, and some of the practices described for parameter measurements may be applied to other instrument setups. 

There exist many other references for ocean acidification and carbonate chemistry research, including the Guide to Best Practices for Ocean CO₂ Measurements. This guide references these resources throughout, and it is not intended as a replacement or update to those SOPs. The aim of this guide is to provide practical approaches to conduct ocean acidification monitoring that enables practitioners to study their coastal waters, address research questions of local importance, and contribute important data to global databases without necessarily having a high level of access to the resources, training, and/or equipment that may be assumed as necessary in other guides. As a result, these practical approaches may not result in the highest accuracy but suitable precision. Yet, the signals in most coastal regions are large enough that these measurements remain valuable and contribute to the important understanding of carbonate chemistry parameters around the ocean. Ultimately, achieving weather-quality measurements of pH and total alkalinity should be possible with the GOA-ON in a Box kit and using these methodologies. As defined by GOA-ON (Newton et al., 2015), the weather objective necessitates an uncertainty of approximately 0.02 in pH and of 10 µmol kg–1 in measurements of total alkalinity (TA).

General Practices

Guidelines for Laboratory Management: Recommendations for safety, efficiency, and quality

Selecting a Research Site: Considerations before finalizing a site

Packing for field sampling: Checklist for field trips

Cleaning Sample Bottles: Clean and store borosilicate bottles for discrete sampling

Field Sampling Sheet Template: Downloadable datasheet

Sensors

Operating the Van Essen CTD-Diver: Collecting salinity, temperature, and depth data

Operating the Sunburst Sensors iSAMI pH Sensor: Measuring pH in the field

iSAMI Frequently Asked Questions: Troubleshooting the pH sensor

Discrete Samples

Water sampling: Collect discrete bottle samples

Preparing pH Indicator Dye Solution: Make up m-cresol purple indicator dye solution for spectrophotometric determination of seawater pH

Processing Mercuric Chloride (HgCl2): Separate mercury from analysis waste

Determining Total Alkalinity: Manual titration and calculation

Determining pH: Spectrophotometric measurement of seawater using the indicator dye m-cresol purple

Assessing Quality with Reference Materials: Check the quality of alkalinity and DIC analyses

Calculating the Seawater Carbonate System: Using the CO2SYS spreadsheet for calculations

Data Management

Data QA / QC Guidelines: Quality assurance and control of bottle samples

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.3.1 Indicator Quick Guide: Submitting data to assess OA globally

Addendum

Community Resources: Helpful links

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This climate change-related experiential learning initiative targeted nonscience majors enrolled in an introductory chemistry course at a two-year college to enhance their understanding of climate change. The activity aimed to connect abstract chemistry concepts to real-world significance over several sessions involving activities like library research, social media interviews, collaboration with environmental advocates, and practical lab activities and simulations. Implemented in a class size of 16–20 students, the initiative was seamlessly integrated without compromising the course curriculum. Students′ reflections highlighted the impactful outcomes of the activity. They exhibited heightened awareness regarding environmental issues, specifically ethical concerns in factory farming and the adverse effects of CO₂ emissions on ocean acidity. This led to a newfound sense of responsibility among students, driving them to advocate for change and engage in proactive measures. Ultimately, this climate change-related experiential learning approach effectively linked chemistry education with practical, relatable contexts. It empowered students to comprehend, reflect upon, and advocate for environmental stewardship, fostering a deeper connection to climate change issues in their communities and beyond.

Investigating climate effects on the ocean and the atmosphere in the laboratory: The working title behind the acronym KOALa says it all. The school laboratory aims to raise awareness of the problem of ocean acidification and the responsible use of resources, while at the same time offering in-depth insights into scientific working methods. With the help of an experiment-based adaptation of the mystery method, students are introduced to research-based learning and sensitized to the effects of fossil fuel combustion on marine chemistry through a model experiment. This is also intended to strengthen the formation of analogies and transferability. The article provides insights into the methodological peculiarities, the concept and the course of the programme and presents initial results from the accompanying scientific research on sources of interest during the exercise of scientific activities.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of an intervention on primary school students’ construction of knowledge on ocean acidification and the development of their systems thinking. Eighty-five 11 to 12-year-old students from five different classes of two public primary schools in Greece participated in the 8-h intervention. The intervention included inquiry-based and knowledge-integration activities, and students worked in groups during all activities. Rich pictures, made by the groups at the beginning and the end of the intervention, were used to evaluate their progress in their knowledge concerning the carbon cycle, as well as in their systems thinking. Our findings showed that the intervention contributed to primary students’ conceptual knowledge of the carbon cycle and the inclusion of ocean acidification in the carbon cycle. It also helped them improve their systems thinking, indicating that students’ systems thinking at this age could be developed through formal instruction with interventions which emphasize content knowledge and use an earth systems approach. Moreover, our findings indicate that the systems thinking perspective can serve as an effective approach to help children better understand and critically engage with complex environmental issues, such as ocean acidification.

This paper reports on an investigation in which risk perception and worry were assessed before and after information about possible consequences of ocean acidification was presented in the form of short-written messages. Study 1 (N = 289, Norway sample) found no support for a causal effect of a message incorporating simple factual information, yet a vivid information message was associated with increased risk perception and worry. Both messages increased the ability to mentally imagine the cause and effects of ocean acidification, but the magnitude of these effects did not account for the comparatively stronger effects of vivid information. Study 2 (N = 298, UK sample) partially replicated these effects in a different national context. While the vivid message increased risk perception and worry about ocean acidification, effects from the simple factual message were less consistent. Being presented plain facts showed an effect on worry and perceived severity, but the perceived likelihood of threat from ocean acidification remained similar to a control condition. Exposure to plain or vivid information about current and future impacts of ocean acidification each increased mental imagery, but these effects were again comparable between the two message conditions. These findings are discussed in the context of communication strategies that target public awareness about climate-related risks.

Engaging students in epistemic and conceptual aspects of modeling practices is crucial for phenomena-based learning in science classrooms. However, many students and teachers still struggle to actualize the reformed vision of the modeling practice in their classrooms. Through a discourse analysis of 150 students’ explanatory models (as social semiotic spaces) from 14 classes, we propose a qualitative framework that investigates conceptual coherence and epistemic discourses to achieve a gapless explanation of scientific phenomena. Our framework draws attention to four critical components of students’ explanatory models: (a) key ideas based on evidence, (b) the discourse modalities of how evidence is presented, (c) scientific representations from the cultures of scientific disciplines, (d) systems thinking approaches directly and indirectly related to oceans and marine ecosystems. Our results indicate that students struggled to construct cohesive explanatory models that communicated all key ideas and the relationships among them, with the majority of student-developed models in our study categorized as ‘insufficiently’ cohesive (lacking key ideas and the relationships among them), and only a small percentage of the models considered ‘extensively’ cohesive (all key ideas attended to, as well as the relationships among them).